There are really a lot of parameters to look for when buying an apartment. To begin with, each buyer should determine in which location he wants to buy an apartment at all, how much he is willing to pay for it and only then comes to the decision whether to buy a new or old apartment. Because apart from the price, the location is often decisive, or more precisely, are there any new apartments at all in the desired locations?
Of course, the guidelines are not the same in the new, newer (up to approx. 15 years old) and old building.
Since the topic is really not easy I will try to start from new apartments.
Of course always or almost always it is best to buy a new apartment.
Back in a year or two it is almost impossible to buy a new finished apartment ready for occupancy. We at Euro-Interiors currently sell new apartments already under construction, so most of the apartments are sold while the building is still in its foundations. These customers are really the worst because they can only trust that the building will be built according to the project, that indeed all the materials specified by the developer will be installed in the building in question, as well as that it will be built within the agreed time and of course in addition to the quality of construction, the documentation that the building must have is very important (building permit - generally everyone has it because without the same thread they cannot start work, Use Permission-is obtained by the developer after the building is finished and after it has passed the technical inspection, elaboration of the condominium,...).
It is best for these buyers to inform themselves if their investors have a finished building, find out the location of it, see how it looks from the outside, possibly talk to the owners of the apartments how satisfied they are with the quality of the construction. It is important for every serious investor that the customer is satisfied. Of course, it is also very important who you talk to, because some buyers are willing to express dissatisfaction with the apartment without actually being the fault of the investor (e.g. they do not agree with the neighbor, they do not ventilate the apartment enough so that fungi form, they are dissatisfied with the location,...) It is also important who sells the apartments, if it is a sale through a real estate agency, be sure to check what experiences have customers with the specified agency. Nowadays, checking an agency online is very easy to do. How long has the agency been in existence? Since we have been operating for over twenty years, we at Euro-Interiors Agency have maintained cooperation only with quality investors. Namely, as it is important for every serious investor that the customer is satisfied, so for any serious agency that has been operating for a long time and plans to do business for a long time, it is very important who it does business with, because poorly built real estate and a dissatisfied customer is bad publicity for the agency as well.
After the first part has been done and the buyer pays the caper, it remains for him to monitor the construction of his future home.
The second category of housing would be newer apartments up to 15 years of age.
In such apartments, all the flaws have already shown themselves, so it is enough when viewing such real estate to carefully inspect it. Primarily the corners of the rooms (whether fungi are placed), of course and here one should be very careful because it does not necessarily mean that the apartment is not well insulated if fungi form. I know from many years of experience that some owners are not inclined to ventilate their apartments and thus create an apartment full of fungus and an unpleasant smell from a good new building. In addition, you need to look at the floors, namely if the parquet has peeled off, split, it means that something is not done correctly. Along the edges of the window it is important to see if maybe the window is leaking somewhere. If something is freshly painted (embodied) you should definitely check with the owner what and why it was painted right now when the apartment is sold. If the apartment is purchased in the winter months, the best indicator of the quality of the carpentry is to stand about 30-50 cm from the window and try not to feel the flow of cold air. Check if the windows close easily or close, if the blinds are plastic or metal, if the tiles in the bathroom are stable or if some have already been changed. Whether the door closes easily or latches (may be an indicator of uneven zits). Of course, there is still the possibility of checking utilities, more precisely heating bills, but this can be subjective because someone may have smaller heating bills because they do not like their apartment temperature to exceed 20 C. Of course, there is also an Energy Certificate which should give a clearer energy picture, but unfortunately most sellers still sell an apartment out of need and are simply unable to obtain an energy certificate before the sale, and when they do, we at Euro-Interiors agency have convinced ourselves countless times that the energy class itself unfortunately often does not reflect such an energy state of the apartment in practice.
For example, it is not possible to know if the apartment/building is really built with porotherm brick, and whether the styrofoam has 5.8 or 15 cm? But if the apartment saved on sockets, so the owners of such apartments stretch the extension ones, or have one only socket in the bathroom, which happened to be just behind the “radiator” (radiator), and of course in the part where it is the densest and to meet the needs of technical inspection there is also a burial so it is completely unusable, it is difficult to believe that the investor Such a bracket is closed with polystyrene foam 15 cm thick.
In addition to the interior of the apartment, the appearance of the building from the outside is important. In what condition is the facade itself, I do not think that it has changed color, because most of them get very dirty with age, some turn green on some dijeys (mainly on the north side), most fade, and some still “hold well” regardless of age. Of course, all this is accompanied by the price of m2 of the apartment itself.
What is the situation with parking/garage spaces, are there enough of them? What is the approach to them? Is the place provided next to the apartment easy or extremely difficult to access, especially if it is a larger car?
In what condition is the staircase of the building itself? Do the tenants maintain the building? Because also the reflection of a building is an indicator of who lives in it, what are the neighbors like? Because customers often bother what kind of seller is to them? Will he deceive them? I don't think it doesn't matter, but I mean it's not the most important because that seller leaves and the neighbors stay.
And now it remains the last category of old real estate from the war onwards, or as we in Euro-interiors call them “from the past system”
There are really the most such apartments on the market and unless it is a strict city center, we generally have larger buildings of several well-known developers (for that time), today they generally no longer exist or at least not in that form and almost all are built according to several models, depending on who the apartments were built for. So with the exception of a few buildings that were built for the leading staff of the companies at the time, most of them were built as standard, and almost all of them require renovation, or were recently renovated and that's where we actually get to the key problems.
Of course, for all of us, a skyscraper with a renovated facade is already far more attractive at first glance. But the restoration of the building costs. In most cases, it is paid partly from EU funds and partly paid by the owners of apartments from the reserve, often residential buildings raise loans and the price of the reserve increases quite a lot depending of course on what is done with the facade. Mostly the exterior carpentry, roofing, elevators are repaired,... Recently, it has become popular that some tenants pay for the renovation from the reserve, and some prefer to pay their part at once, so they save on interest and pass more favorably.
In such apartments, if the renovation is carried out, it is important to check the amount of the reserve bills, as well as for how many years is it contracted? If the renovation is not carried out, you have to count on slightly higher bills, but also on the fact that the existing tenants will decide on the same in the near future. There are also buildings that necessarily had to renew the roof because it was leaking, repair the elevators, or change them due to wear and tear. All this increases the price of the reserve, and the maybe is not visible at first. So the best indicator is a reserve account. It is not bad to ask the owner for an inspection and a heating bill.
It is relatively easy to find out about the quality of the construction of the building itself, because it is almost impossible that you do not have some acquaintance, relative,... who lives or lived in the same and similar building.
There is another sub-category left and these are buildings/houses in the narrower and wider city center that are 100 years old or more years old. Often they are the same protected monuments of culture, so their restoration of the facade requires special/elevated standards, which, of course, is accompanied by increased prices. In all apartments sold in such buildings, various adaptations have been made, but most of them require re-adaptations. Here, perhaps, I would pay special attention to the floors, whether it is done with wooden beams or the floors are made of concrete. How are they bewitched, are they flat, do they creak? Namely, repairing floors can be a big expense in such buildings, then it is important how and when the installations inside the apartment are replaced, e.g. water and drainage, electrical installations, sanitary facilities. If it is possible to check what the situation is in the apartment above, as well as who lives above, because if there is a flood problems arise in the apartment below,... Try to get to know the neighbors, maybe the seller of the apartment still has bills as proof of what and how he arranged in the apartment. Someone also has pictures by stages of how he was editing something. All this can help in the decision.
In Euro-interiors we often sell one property two or more times over the course of twenty years. Our customers often return within a few years, some move, for some the apartment becomes too big or too small, and some simply after ten or twenty years want a new apartment. We almost always keep pictures of apartments, and especially when we sell a building from scratch, from construction. Photos are good proof that something built only to them is not always easy to reach.